Club Times: September/October 2022
THE YACHT CLUB In 2023, Atlanta Athletic Club will celebrate its 125th anniversary. The club was founded in 1898 by a group of 65 Atlanta businessmen who enjoyed playing sports and social activities. This article is the ninth in a series entitled “125 Years: The Legacy of Atlanta Athletic Club.” The purpose of the series is so that members may become familiar with the history and heritage of the great club to which they belong.
The Atlanta Athletic Club’s move north to Duluth in the 1960s was part of a century-long trend of suburbanization. The AAC opened the East Lake facility in the early twentieth century as a country retreat, just as prosperous Atlantans were looking for rural enclaves in which to enjoy recreation and fresh air. Many were responding to a major population shift that affected urban areas between 1900 and 1920. During this period, the population in cities grew by 80 percent. Overcrowding, pollution, and crime prompted older and wealthier residents to seek refuge in places like East Lake, one of Atlanta’s first suburbs. East Lake primarily served the AAC’s summer residents, as well as members, who, with limited access to transportation and good roads, lived relatively close by. With the advent of the interstate highway system, begun during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency, many of the club’s members began to move out of the city, distancing themselves from the golf course, lake, and changing demographics of the neighborhood. The prosperous northern suburbs of Marietta, Sandy Springs, Roswell, Dunwoody, Alpharetta, and Duluth—called the
Golden Crescent by developers —became home to many AAC members. Suburbs, at first, were isolated from the city center and had few of the services available to city dwellers. But that quickly changed, and clean streets, new schools, and large houses made them some of the most desirable places to live. In this context the membership elected to relocate the AAC. The members who remained in or near the city continued to enjoy the amenities of the downtown club and East Lake; those who moved north began to call for an accessible facility that would serve their recreational needs. In 1958, the AAC opened the Yacht Club at Lake Lanier to accommodate the latter group. The decision to do so is best understood as a compromise. At the time, there was some debate about whether the club should build a third course north of Atlanta. Charlie Elliott pointed out that the Yacht Club was intended “as a peace move to bring the two factions together by giving the northsiders a facility and keeping East Lake intact.” What began as little more than a casual suggestion
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